Thursday, 16 April 2009

Next Tuesday, 21 April 2009, the EU Council Working Party on Information meets (agenda) and there are two interesting points under the agenda item 2 "Access to documents":

a. Seventh annual report of the Council on the implementation of Regulation No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents

d. Proposal for a Regulation (EC) of the European Parliament and of the Council regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (recast of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001)

This revision of the Regulation 1049/2001 on access to documents will show how the European Union and institutions take their democratic responsibility, in particular seeing how the Commission handles (in-)transparency and seeing how incredible inscrutable the Council works. At least, some governments, in particular from the north, have raised their concerns about the information access legislation, and now the Dutch government seems to join them.

On the agenda of the Working Party on Information there is also another interesting issue under any other business:

"Club of Venice: Workshop on Internet/Web 2.0 communication and on the implementation of the EP's communication strategy for the European elections (Brussels (IPC), 17 April 2009)"

I didn't hear about this "Club of Venice" before, and there are not too many references to this thing. What I found is this information (own translation):

Created some twenty years ago, this informal Club gathers today the governmental information services of the European Union as well as the DG Communication of the Commission with the goal to exchange information and good practices.

The Club of Venice meets twice a year, once in Venice and once in the capital of the EU Council Presidency.

In other words, staff of the member states' governments and Commission officials will meet tomorrow to discuss the information campaign of the European Parliament and the use of web 2.0.

But neither the Council website nor the responsible Commissioner Margot Wallström (in her blog or on the DG's website) talk about this event.